Has anyone here heard of Patrick O'Brian? tsuwm, I'd be particularly interested in your comments on his "list". Have you been to that Duluth site? AnnaS. and Faldage, what do you think of some of Mr. O'B.'s etymologies? Bingley?
http://www.io.com/gibbonsb/words.words.words.html

Patrick O'Brian. Aubrey-Maturin stories. Life aboard an English fighting ship during the Napoleonic Wars. Excellent stories. Never heard of his repute as an etymologist.

And your link worked fine for me, BTW. hth.

Gibbons Burke and the contributors to his list play pretty fast and loose with folk etymology on some of those phrases--some of which we've discussed here; e.g., three sheets to the wind, the whole nine yards, POSH(?).

it will be interesting to see how much of the Duluth site material ends up in OED3.

Yes, I was thinking of posh in particular, since to my recollection it was debunked here. I shall trust that you'll keep an eye out, my friend. Yes, Faldage, you DID help!

Has anyone here heard of Patrick O'Brian?

I used to believe that no one would write better novels dealing with the Royal Navy of that period than CS Forrester. Now I think no one will ever do better than Patrick O'Brian. A strange man, however, and a shame that he is dead.

O'Brian was very knowledgable on naval and medical history and terminology but, except in those fields, he was not an etymologist.